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Nature, Published online: 11 September 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02893-8

Nature staff discuss an AI tool that can assess the impact of 9 billion mutations — plus, how the Bunsen burner’s reputation for sterilization might be based on tradition alone.

Nature, Published online: 11 September 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02892-9

The major funder of basic science has not said how its new initiatives will be funded — but staff worry streamlined approach will further squeeze cash for core sciences.

Nature, Published online: 11 September 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02883-w

Politics and personal values influence people’s confidence in scientists, finds new report

Nature, Published online: 11 September 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02763-3

Evoking emotions is more likely to prompt people to engage with climate efforts than are data alone.

Nature, Published online: 11 September 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02827-4

Large networks are particularly beneficial to researchers in under-represented groups.

A century-old mystery in Venus’s clouds just became more intriguing, as scientists calculated how strongly the unidentified material behind its dark ultraviolet patterns must absorb light. The results sharply narrow the possibilities and could help future spacecraft determine whether the mysterious substance is organic, inorganic, or something unexpected.

Ancient rocks from Western Australia suggest water was reaching deep inside Earth more than three billion years ago, long before modern plate tectonics may have fully developed. Researchers propose that water-rich pieces of crust periodically sank into the mantle through a process they call “dripduction.” The buried water then helped produce magma and volcanic eruptions.

A natural compound found in foods such as spinach, almonds, and sweet potatoes may aggravate gut inflammation in people with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis because their intestines appear to handle it differently. Researchers say the finding could open the door to lower-oxalate diets or microbiome treatments tailored specifically to people with IBD.

GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound may increase hair-loss risk by 7% in men who are already genetically susceptible to male-pattern baldness. The findings suggest thinning hair may not be caused only by rapid weight loss and could also reflect a biological link between GLP-1 activity and hair follicles.

Scientists have uncovered a natural braking system that helps the immune system switch off inflammation and prevent harmful immune cells from building up. Boosting this pathway in people reduced inflammation-related immune changes and sped up pain relief, pointing toward potential new treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases.

Paleontologists have identified a new species of extinct alligatorid that lived in what is now Colorado just a few hundred thousand years after the asteroid impact that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs.

The post Ancient Alligator Relative Lived Right After Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

New research from the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo suggests ichthyosaurs’ rib cages may have done a job modern whale ribs don’t: acting as ballast to help them dive.

The post Ichthyosaurs Had Surprisingly Dense Ribs, New Study Finds appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Paleontologists in Montana have discovered remarkably preserved feathers of an ancient aquatic bird inside a fossilized dinosaur dropping, offering rare insight into why certain birds survived the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

The post Exceptionally Preserved Bird Feathers Found in 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Coprolite appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Paleoanthropologists have identified a trove of Denisovan fossils from a cave in China’s Yunnan province, extending the known range of the elusive human relative and providing the first-ever direct evidence of what its forearm bones looked like.

The post Denisovans Once Roamed Southwest China, New Fossils Reveal appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Paleontologists in North Dakota have unearthed a set of 66.5-million-year-old fossilized footprints that can be confidently attributed to a full-grown Tyrannosaurus rex.

The post Paleontologists Discover First-Ever Adult Tyrannosaurus rex Trackway appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

One-fifth of data sets intended to support replication breached privacy standards, study finds

Genesis Mission partnership between national labs and AI startup builds new model to automate large-scale science

Geologist and officials were acquitted last week, but scientists fear future liability for failing to predict similar disasters

An evolutionary trade-off may have helped a mutation linked to auto-immune disease persist in human populations

Twist on classic Brownian motion experiment could help test bounds of quantum theory and aid search for new particles

“The pain I would feel in my body was like being struck by lightning and hit by a freight train all at once.” Victoria Gray's words will resonate with anyone who has experienced a sickle-cell disease crisis. In 2019, she became the first patient to have sickle-cell disease treated with the pioneering gene-editing therapy now known as Casgevy/exa-cel, which has since been approved for sickle-cell disease and β-thalassaemia. Her medical transformation was remarkable: “Now I can dream again without limitations.” Further successes have followed, including editing T cells as a leukaemia therapy and editing liver cells to treat transthyretin amyloidosis or metabolic conditions.

Thalassaemias are the most common monogenic inherited diseases and are characterised by reduced production of globin chains of haemoglobin. The two most common forms are α-thalassaemia and β-thalassaemia, which affect the production of α-globin and β-globin genes, respectively.1,2 Individuals with severe forms of thalassaemia receive lifelong chronic red blood cell transfusions, resulting in iron overload that leads to severe complications such as endocrinopathy, cardiomyopathy, diabetes, auditory abnormalities, osteoporosis, and growth failure, which can substantially affect their quality of life.

The virus family Filoviridae includes several species known to cause severe and often fatal disease in humans. Within the genus Orthoebolvirus, the majority of clinical disease cases and associated deaths have been caused by Orthoebolavirus zairense (Ebola virus; EBOV), which was responsible for a massive epidemic in west Africa from 2013 to 2016, resulting in at least 28 000 clinical cases of disease and 11 325 deaths.1 In addition to EBOV, Orthoebolavirus sudanense (Sudan virus), and Orthoebolavirus bundibugyoense (Bundibugyo virus; BDBV) have both caused substantial outbreaks, the latter of which has recently re-emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and as of Aug 27, 2026, has caused 5815 confirmed cases and 2788 deaths.

In Jorge Luis Borges's fantastical short story, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, written in 1940, he imagines the invention of a new world, Tlön, by a secret society of, among others, astronomers, biologists, and engineers. Over several centuries, they developed “a rigorous and systematic plan” for this planet based not on materialism, but on idealism—the philosophy that nothing is real unless consciously perceived. There are no nouns in Tlön, only verbs and adjectives. There is no science. Nobody reasons.

Experts warn of a risk of communicable diseases, malnutrition, and mental health conditions following catastrophic flooding that has killed thousands. Sophie Cousins reports.

Generative AI could help overwhelmed travelers organize their thoughts, compare options and complete vacation plans they might otherwise abandon, according to new research from the University of Surrey.

A multidisciplinary scientific team at the University of Malaga has developed a new technology based on magnetic nanoparticles that enables precise, rapid and reliable diagnosis of allergy to beta-lactam antibiotics, including amoxicillin and other penicillins.

Virtually all cultures and eras fizz with magic. You might call it a secret ingredient of human life because magic takes so many forms and serves so many functions.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached another milestone this summer, a first for space agencies. On Sunday, July 5, the probe conducted the first successful laser-ranging experiment during a flyby of asteroid Torifune, the first exploration target of Hayabusa2's Extended Mission. This latest milestone will advance the capabilities of JAXA and other space agencies as they pursue future missions involving near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and other deep-space objects.

Anyone who has ever woken up with a hangover will recognize its physical and psychological effects: headache, nausea, self-loathing, regret and perhaps even some shame at the uninhibited behavior that accompanied the intoxication.

OpenAI is at the center of another controversy over machines tackling big math problems. This one’s about the twin prime conjecture.

As heatwaves become more frequent and severe, scientists are studying whether heat acclimation can help protect vulnerable populations.

Scientists are working closely with art historians to uncover scientific documentation in historic paintings.

The anniversaries come and go, but the physical and mental health of workers and survivors is still being affected by September 11, 2001.

Historic data and predictions suggest cases will rise in East Africa and southern regions, while the threat may ease in West and Central Africa.